


Cobalt Chronicles Side Stories

by Shammoner



Series: The Cobalt Chronicles [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Corrupt Ul'Dahns, Dragon society, F/M, Fortemps Family, Free Company Adventures, Gen, Keeper of the Moon Families, Pudgy Puk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 08:50:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13737357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shammoner/pseuds/Shammoner
Summary: One-shots or other stories not part of longer works set in the general canon of my Free Company, Cobalt Echoes.  Each chapter will have a description of the story in question.





	1. Protecting Her Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rajiya will do whatever she must to ensure her companions thrive. Ambiguous timeframe.

_Black eyes, broken fingers,_

_Blood drips and I let it run down my lips and to my swollen gums_

_When hope is non-existent,_

_Our instincts all scream, “Run”,_

_We never turn our backs or even bite our tongue._

_-Behind Closed Doors (Rise Against)_

* * *

 

The blow connected with Rajiya’s face just slowly enough for her to turn her head a little bit.  Her lip split all the same, and she tasted the coppery tang of her own blood as it spattered against her teeth.  She snarled at her captors, giving them what they wanted to see–the Commander of Light, bound and at their mercy, her assassination attempt failed.

They didn’t need to know it hadn’t failed at all, yet.

Ninishori Nunushori was one of the quieter of Ul’dah’s elite, but that just meant he’d flown under their radar for longer.  Nothing he did seemed terrible…until one sifted through the layers of hirelings, lackeys, and accomplices he used to do his dirty work.  At that point, the middle-aged Dunesfolk man looked less like a Lalafell and more like a spider, sitting at the middle of his putrid web and waiting for money, baubles, and artifacts to filter their way down the strands and into his grasping claws.

They’d become aware of him by accident, really–they’d attended an auction with a number of Allagan and Mhachi artifacts up for sale, mostly as a diversion, and had witnessed Ninishori lose a bid on some Mhachi scrolls.  They’d thought nothing of it until the winner turned up dead less than a week later, of mysterious-but-probably-natural causes.  They might not have even thought anything of it if they hadn’t gone to  _another_ antiques auction later the same week, and saw Ninishori lose again…only for  _that_  buyer to meet the same fate as the first.

That vaulted him to a person of interest in a hurry.  Rajiya had started investigating by herself, trying to determine the connections between Ninishori and his network.  It had been slow going–the man was frighteningly cautious–but she was better.  She’d had to move quickly, though, when she saw him mobilizing some of his seedier agents for an inevitable murder, and that left her with only one option– to ‘botch’ an assassination on him to try and gather information.

Another blow connected, and she knew that she’d have a black eye from that–but as far as softening up went, they’d have to do a lot worse to her to get her to speak.  She wasn’t going to let it get to that point.

“Who sent you?” one of them said sharply.  She stared at him coolly, until he snarled and struck her again, snapping her head in the opposite direction.  “Tell us!  Your pack of would-be heroes will take the stupidest of jobs…who hired you?”

She said nothing.  He wouldn’t believe the truth, and she wasn’t interested in playing the game.

“We’re wasting time,” his partner said.  “Tie her up and we’ll work her over when we get back.  The opera starts in half an hour.”

“Aye,” the first one said, sounding a bit disgusted.  “Well, at least she won’t be in our way.  Should make this easier.”

_Wait…why would she be in their way?_

He gave her a swift kick and went over her bindings–far too casually to actually see the flaws that would allow her to escape.  Then both left, taking the lantern with them and plunging the room into near-darkness.

Fortunately, she was a Miqo’te, but even if she hadn’t been, she could do this by feel.  The bindings fell from her wrists and she hunted around for her knives, strapping them at her sides once she put hands on them.  They must have been planning to torture her with her own blades…idiots.

Still, why would she have anything to do with the opera?

A thought came to her mind, unbidden.  Elsi in a gown of crushed velvet, hurrying out of the company house, stammering out excuses before pelting down the street in her fashionable high-heeled shoes.  At the time, Rajiya had just let her go with a sigh, but…

Elsi collected books and relics, Allagan, Mhachi, and any others that she thought might have something to do with the study of thaumaturgy, arcanima, or black magic.  Had she been to any auctions lately that the others hadn’t attended?  Had Ninishori simply learned that Elsi owned some artifact or tome that he wanted his claws on?

Rajiya, alarmed now, tried the door (bolted) and her linkpearl (nobody was paying attention) before working on the lock, in the dark, by feel alone.  It took her much longer than she liked to get it open, and she slipped into the shadows of the hall outside quickly once she did.  This building wasn’t Ninishori’s manor–it was in the poorer part of Ul’dah, at that.  She’d have to move quickly to get to the opera house in time.

She dashed up the stairs, out a window, and climbed to the roof swiftly, the textured fingers and toes of her gloves and boots finding cracks and gaps in the mortared brick.  Once on the roof, she took off in more-or-less a straight line, ducking past laundry lines and dovecotes as she moved.

The sun was just beginning to set, and it cast uncertain shadows sometimes, but she never missed her mark.  Her feet landed right, her fingers (though aching by this point from the tender attentions of Ninishori’s hirelings) found every ledge and gap as she bade them.

She slipped in one of the roof entrances of the opera house and made her way down.  She didn’t even know where Elsi sat for these things!  Did she sit in the audience?  She certainly had enough gil to afford a private box, and Rajiya felt like that’s what she’d prefer, but she just wasn’t sure…she paused in a hallway that had an open walkway facing the audience section, and quickly scanned it.  She could only see about half of the private boxes from here, but luckily, she spotted a familiar flash of deep-green skin and amethyst limbal rings.  Unfortunately, Elsi’s box was on the other side of the room.

Rajiya took off at a trot, still blending into the shadows.  The opera had started, and those present were primarily paying attention to the music, but she saw no sense in taking chances.  She was glad she had moved as quickly as she had, however, when she reached the hallway that connected to the private boxes and saw the same two ruffians from earlier–wearing uniforms, but obviously the ones that had been hassling her.  One had bruised knuckles and a small cut from where he’d clipped one of her fangs, for Twelves’ sake!

She drew both her blades, flipping the cutting edge back along her forearms, and waited.  They seemed to be waiting for a certain point in the music to attack, and so she waited a moment longer as they shifted back and forth.  Finally, when both were paying attention to the velvet curtain and the music beyond, she moved in like lightning, grasping the head of the nearer in one hand and slitting his throat in a single neat strike.  His companion turned at once, but she had already rolled behind the second man, and she rose like a Voidsent from the blackest hells to repeat the move that had ended his partner’s life.

A pause, then; she wanted to make sure that Elsi hadn’t noticed.  She oh-so-gently moved the curtain just a fraction; the Auri woman, garbed in a lovely gown of purple silk damask, was sitting as close to the railing as she could, head in her hands, attention focused on the stage.  A lorgnette with black opal inlays sat on the railing at one side; evidently she was enjoying the music right now and didn’t require the glasses at the moment.  Rajiya let the curtain fall shut and looked at the rapidly cooling bodies–and the significant amount of blood–at her feet.

It was easily solved, though; she hunted through the corridors to find another private box that was currently unoccupied and, with a moment of pity for the opera house staff and the owners, she hauled the bodies inside, flipping the curtain back to hide them from the view of those in the hall.  The blood she dealt with by way of some ninjutsu and a sanjaku-tenugui she’d had stowed away; that went back in a waterproof pouch to be dealt with later.

That done, she leaned against the wall by one side of the doorway.  She’d be gone before Elsi left, but she would stay until near the end of the opera.  She would do a great many things for her companions, as evidenced by her quick elimination of the threat…and letting her enjoy an opera in peace was the least she could do.

She dabbed at her sluggishly bleeding lip with one fingertip and settled in to wait.


	2. False Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of a plotless, rambling drabble featuring my character (Rajiya), Kyari Angevir, and Mattoid Shappo, with brief mentions of Weaver and Awesome Blossom.
> 
> Spoilers for 3.0/3.1, takes place between 3.1 and 3.2.

Rajiya still didn’t feel entirely comfortable in the Fortemps manor, but she was getting there.

The Echoes could have returned to their home base, the estate in the Goblet, but not all of them had.  Travel had eased up between the city-states after they’d been cleared of their crimes against the Sultanate, but Rajiya and a few others were still a bit distrustful of the Monetarists, and besides, there was enough in Ishgard that needed their attention that it made sense to stay.

She still found the marble and velvet a bit oppressive sometimes, but the generosity of Edmont and his sons was a steady presence in their lives, and all the Echoes who remained were diplomatic enough to ignore a bit of discomfort.

That was why one chilly evening found Rajiya in the kitchens of the manor, hunting through the crate of things that the Echoes had bought or found that appealed to non-Ishgardian palates.  The cooks had been nervous about her presence at first, but it turned out that ‘trained at the Bismarck’ had enough weight to settle them, even if they still whispered about impropriety now and then.

She found what she was looking for soon enough–a bag of coffee beans, still mostly full.  She scooped out a portion and dropped them into a mortar and pestle, grinding them up and filling that corner of the kitchens with their rich aroma.  She stretched a piece of cheesecloth across the top of a mug, dumped in a scoop of ground beans, and started pouring boiling water over top.  A few of the cooks looked up appreciatively as the steam made the smell waft in their direction.

Rajiya was tired.  She hoped the coffee would help.  She smiled at one of the chefs, a young hyuran woman, who brought her a shallow pan with some buffalo milk gently steaming in it; they knew her tastes by now.  She picked up a wire whisk and started whipping the milk, gently frothing it.  By then the coffee was ready, and she poured the milk into the mug, adding in a few generous spoonfuls of sugar and taking a generous sip.

It was delicious.  She cleaned up her mess, smiled at the cooks, and left.

Her steps took her out into the common areas, to the upper floors, near the attics, where they’d been given rooms.  There were a few balconies here that looked out over the Pillars, and she found herself stepping onto one, trying to ignore the chilly air that was already beginning to seep into her bones.

She ignored the pain across her ribs and took another sip of coffee.  From somewhere nearby, a different manor, she heard the faint sounds of music and conversation.  If she strained, she might hear the sounds of Foundation, but they were almost inaudible; the cries of drovers and the people of the Brume, the faint clinking and clanking of armor and weapons as knights drilled.

Weakness swept across her as she lifted the mug for another sip, and she gasped in shock as it slipped from fingers that trembled.  The thing was sturdy stoneware, but even it couldn’t take the punishment of hitting the flagstones, and it cracked as the coffee spilled across the balcony.

She barely registered the dark form of a dragoon alighting on the balcony rail as she crumpled to the ground and darkness swept over her.

* * *

It was quite a bit later that she awoke, and when she did, she was inside with two women arguing over her.

One was dressed in dragonlancer’s gear, her helmet removed and lance leaning against the wall near the door.  The interior lights made her red hair even brighter, and she was shaking her head at the blonde woman just a few fulms away.

The blonde was dressed more simply–or so it appeared–in a red leather-and-chain tabard, with gloves that went up to the elbow and, perhaps most incongruously, a black domino mask.

“I found her collapsed out there,” the dragoon said.  “Actually, I got there right as she fell.”

“She’s been overworking herself,” the blonde murmured.  “We all have, but she takes it too far.”

“I’m right here,” Rajiya tried to say, but the words emerged only as a hoarse croak.

The women turned to look at her almost in unison, then both stepped to the edge of the bed.

“Did you hear me?” the blonde said, her tone stern, even exasperated.  “You take things too far.  We know you’ve been overworking yourself.”

“I think this might be more than just work, Kyari,” the dragoon murmured.  She reached out and pressed her hand against Rajiya’s ribs, which made the miqo’te instinctively hiss and flinch.

Kyari glanced from the dragoon to Rajiya and sighed.

“Thank you, Mattoid,” she said after a moment, and stripped off her gloves.  “Could you go to the stillroom and the kitchens and see if you can get some bandages, salve, and hot water?”

The dragoon nodded and left.

“So, what happened here?” Kyari said, sitting on the edge of the bed.  “Does Weaver know?”

Rajiya shook her head.  “He’s…in Vylbrand.  Maelstrom needed him for something.  I’ve been trying to physick myself, but it hasn’t been helping as much I as hoped.”  She sighed, not arguing, as Kyari pushed her shirt up just enough to see the cut across her ribs.  “It was–you know Blossom wanted us to send samples of plants and minerals from the Diadem back to Ul’dah.  An Endymion caught me right as I was going after some cloud cotton…”

The gash across Rajiya’s ribs was puffy, agitated; whatever spells she’d been using to try and fix it hadn’t been working, or had, at best, been enough to stave off blood poisoning and not much else.  Infection was a distinct possibility.  Kyari sighed.

“You need to tell people you’ve been hurt,” she said, still stern.

“I thought Weaver would have been back by now,” Rajiya countered, as sullen in her own way as a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“That’s exactly why you need to tell people,” Kyari said.  “In case things like this happen.”

Rajiya grumbled.  Fortunately, both women were saved from continued argument by the reappearance of Mattoid.  The dragoon had bandages draped over her arms, a jar of salve in the crook of her left arm and a bowl of steaming water in both hands.  Kyari quickly appropriated the items and began cleaning and tending to the wound.

“I didn’t expect you to be–ouch!–quite so thorough at this,” Rajiya grumbled after Kyari’s third pass with antiseptic.

“Pureblood Garleans can’t use magic,” Kyari said absently.  “We all had to learn first aid, and my rank meant I had to know more.  I can do some field surgery, too.  Sit up some?”  When Rajiya failed to sit up, Kyari looked unsurprised.  “Figured.  Mattoid, help her.”

With the dragoon’s help, Rajiya was lifted into a sitting position, and new bandages were applied.

“There,” Kyari said.  “If Weaver isn’t back within a day, we’ll check the bandages and change them.  In the meantime, you need to rest.”

Rajiya tried to argue, but Kyari flicked her fingers, and a familiar veil of white magic settled over her.  It was impossible to try and fight a repose spell while so weak, and she found darkness settling over her eyes before she could do more than grumble in dislike.

* * *

A short walk found Kyari and Mattoid on the same balcony that Rajiya had been at when she fell.  Kyari knelt to clean up the largest pieces of the shattered mug while Mattoid pulled the visor of her helm back down.

“What are we still doing here?” Kyari wondered at last, a sigh escaping her mouth.  “It’s not like they couldn’t get a message to us.  I can understand you, at least,” she hastened to add.  “With Estinien gone, you’re the Azure Dragoon.  They need you to watch out for dragons.  But the rest of us?  We’re living on Fortemps hospitality and waiting for the hammer to fall.  We’d be better off trying to set up a branch of the Adventurer’s Guild in Idyllshire, or returning to Ul’dah.”

Mattoid gazed at the horizon for a moment, taking one supernaturally-large step up to the balcony railing and balancing there with perfect poise, one leg slightly bent, lance held in her right hand.

“Whatever changes the future holds will begin here,” she said at last.  “On some level, Rajiya knows that, and I know you do as well.  Anything that happens here will throw ripples across all Eorzea like a stone in a pond.  By the time those ripples reached Idyllshire or Ul’dah, it might be too late to react.”

Kyari wilted slightly as Mattoid turned back, lifting her visor just enough so that Kyari could see the anguish, still raw, in her eyes.

“Sometimes even being there when it happens isn’t enough time, after all.”

Without another word, the dragoon lowered her visor again, turned, and leapt skyward, vanishing into the icy mist swirling around the manor’s eaves.  Kyari shivered and went back inside.

* * *

As it turned out, Weaver did not return swiftly.  A missive from Maelstrom Command suggested that his mission might take longer than even Merlwyb had anticipated.  Rajiya tolerated the visits from Kyari and Mattoid, the changing of her bandages, until she’d finally recovered enough from injury and exhaustion to sit up.

At that point, she was bored enough to go through her packs and find something else–a bamboo flute, an instrument Oboro had called a shakuhachi.  Rajiya was adept enough at playing it, given that she’d received a little bardic training, but she often hated the sound, because it seemed to have a haunting, mournful quality.  She only ever played it alone, on one of the balconies, not wanting others to hear songs becoming something almost like a lament.

Now, though, she lifted it to her lips and began playing a song that the Wandering Minstrel had played many nights in Seventh Heaven, while the Scions and Echoes gathered to listen to the performance.

_Tell us why, given Life, we are meant to die, helpless in our cries?_

As the last notes of the song faded, the haunting breath of the flute fading away, she rummaged around for a different set of sheet music.  This music had begun making the rounds of Ishgard’s taverns and drinking-holes, though the melody seemed to have originated from the depths of Dravania.  As far as Rajiya knew, it had no words–yet–but meaning seemed to hang in the air as she played the flute.

_Tell me why break trust, why turn the past to dust, seeking solace in the abyss…_

Rajiya looked up as she finished playing the song, only to catch a glimpse of something–someone–quickly walking away from her room.  Black hair, but shorter than Artoirel.

Emmanelain?

She shook her head.  He’d been acting strangely the last time they’d all met, when his brother declared his intent to take over his father’s title and duties.  She didn’t want to hazard a guess at what might be going on.

After all that had happened and all that they had endured in Ishgard, she still couldn’t quite shake the feeling–the worry–that the worst was yet to come…


	3. On Moonlit Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rajiya meets a new traveling companion – a wyvern.
> 
> Takes place sometime during Heavensward, but otherwise ambiguous timeframe.

Interacting with the Dravanians had been an experience for Rajiya and the rest of the Cobalt Echoes.  Rajiya was accustomed to receiving letters from all corners of the realm, but messages from dragons tended to come in person, often in clandestine fashion, or via ragged scraps of paper that the Moogles delivered with notable distaste.  Their scorn was clear; this was not a letter, and shouldn’t be delivered via the post!  The fact that they delivered them anyway spoke volumes.

As it stood, the message Rajiya received that day was one of the verbal sort, from an otherwise-inoffensive looking Elezen man who wouldn’t have stood out anywhere in Ishgard proper, and certainly didn’t a malm or two from Idyllshire.  Then again, the heretics probably needed inoffensive faces even in the depths of the Holy See.

“Well met,” he had said, and then launched into his message without delay.  “Vidofnir bids you return to Anyx Trine when you are able.  She wishes to make an introduction.”

With that, he held up his hand in something that was not quite a salute and not quite a goodbye and strode off purposefully.  Rajiya shrugged and looked at her garb–Astrologian getup, for she’d been waiting for evening to chart a few things–but she had been planning to do so out of curiosity and not necessity, so she saw no reason not to hurry on to Anyx Trine.

She reached for the aether and was soon standing in the dimly lit interior of the tower, a brief moment of stomach-turning nausea gripping her before she shook her head.  She paced to the stairs, the physical activity of climbing banishing the last of her woes.  By the time she reached Vidofnir, she was back to normal.

 _“Ah, you’ve arrived,”_  the dragon said simply once Rajiya stepped into her view.  As always, there was that unsettling half-second pause as the Echo reached into her mind and translated the words, accompanied by the faint echo of the actual draconic words behind the meaning. Rajiya focused.   _“I have someone I want you to meet.  I believe she will be useful in your travels.”_

Vidofnir looked up, and a wyvern stepped off of a crumbling perch and gracefully glided down to the floor between Vidofnir and Rajiya.

 _“This is Moh Hess,”_  Vidofnir said.   _“She once carried a mortal through the skies, and would be willing to do so again, for your sake.”_

Rajiya could scarcely guess at the meaning of the wyvern’s name, but she bowed.  “I’m honored.  Thank you, Moh Hess.”

The wyvern didn’t speak for a moment, then nodded.  _“I believe the honor is mine, hero.  Climb on, and let us see how well we may travel together.”_

Rajiya examined the wyvern’s thin neck and shoulders as she gathered her skirts in one hand, then climbed on, settling herself between the wyvern’s wings. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it was definitely manageable.  The wyvern gave a push of her legs and they were airborne.  Rajiya found her balance easily enough and splayed her hands against the wyvern’s warm, scaly hide, settling her legs as Moh Hess made her way out of Anyx Trine.

They did a few laps around the tower before the wyvern landed and gazed back at Rajiya with a curious look.   _“Your garb.  The ornaments.  What do they mean?”_

Rajiya looked at the various ornaments on her robes and star globe, patterned after the moon and stars, then back at the wyvern.  She had a feeling that Moh Hess knew quite well, but humored her with a response all the same.  “The moon, the stars.  I’ve been studying Sharlayan astrology.”

The wyvern was oddly quiet, then looked back at the sky.   _“My…last companion enjoyed gazing at the stars, also.  As do I.”_

Rajiya felt her regard for the wyvern–and for Vidofnir–warm considerably.  “Ah, then I believe we are well suited.”

* * *

Indeed, it did not take long for Moh Hess to warm to Rajiya, and one day not even a month later, the wyvern informed Rajiya that she was taking her to see something special, and with little preamble ferried her partner to the very top of Sohm Al, higher than Rajiya had gone before.

The sky was incredibly clear here, despite the air being thin enough that Rajiya’s breath rattled in her chest in an unpleasant fashion.  She was managing, however, and the clarity of the stars and moon were breathtaking.

Moh Hess interrupted their stargazing to show Rajiya something.  A small stone marker, without adornments but with a few blue flowers lying on the stony peak nearby.

 _“I choose to remember him here,”_  Moh Hess said at length, and Rajiya understood, all at once.  The wyvern hadn’t said much about her previous comrade, other than that he was an Elezen that was all legs, once a knight, and that Rajiya was a lot shorter and ‘a little bit more fluffy’.  She suspected that was a joke.

Rajiya knelt respectfully before the marker and brushed her fingers over it.  The surface was worn by time, but still fairly smooth.  She glanced over her shoulder at the wyvern’s claws, then back at the stone, and finally spoke, a little uncertainly.

“Would you like for me to engrave his name?”

The wyvern blinked, slowly, then lifted her head in what Rajiya was beginning to understand was an expression of hope and happiness.  In turn, Rajiya smiled and dug through her packs, finding her goldsmith’s hammer and set of chisels.

“What was his name?” she asked.

 _“Sindarioux,”_  Moh Hess replied.

Rajiya nodded and set to work.  Before long, the name was neatly engraved on the stone.

As she put up her hammer, she turned to look at Moh Hess, having a feeling about something she’d noticed before.  The whorls of blue pigment, well-worn by time, that still clung to the scales on the wyvern’s face–those hadn’t been put there by her own claws.  Rajiya sat down by the dragon’s side, and then asked.

Moh Hess was quiet for a long time before answering.   _“Yes.  He put those on my face.  It seemed silly at the time, but I am…sad that I could not take better care of them, now.”_

“I could touch them up, if you’d like,” Rajiya offered, and the astonishment in the dragon’s eyes was all the encouragement she needed.  She fished around in her packs, finding blue pigments and a mirror, and began crushing and mixing the pigment into paint.  Then, with careful fingers, letting Moh Hess watch in the mirror, she re-painted the dragon’s face.

 _“He was brave,”_  the dragon said when they were done, Rajiya’s fingers washed and the paint dried, and Rajiya was leaning back into the curve of the wyvern’s side again, safe beneath one of her wings.  _“A knight.  But he was injured, badly, and they had to remove one of his legs, at the knee.  He took up stargazing, and we became friends.  I think I loved him, at the end, though not in the way of Hraesvelgr and Shiva.  We were simply two kindred souls, cursed by time.  Mortals are so fleeting.”_

The sorrow in the wyvern’s voice twisted Rajiya’s heart, and she patted the dragon’s shoulder companionably.  “Then I am glad I may have been able to help you honor his memory,” she offered.

It seemed like that was the right thing to say.

Rajiya slept before long, worn out from her exertions carving the stone.  She had the strangest dream–an Elezen man with hair so pale a blonde it was almost silver and piercing blue eyes gazed at her over a nose like a hawk’s beak, then smiled.  She noticed then that one of his legs was missing below the knee, and he leaned on a wooden crutch.

Sindarioux? She mouthed, for she didn’t seem able to speak.  He nodded.

“Thank you,” he said softly, “for looking after Moh Hess.”

When she awoke, the dream had softened around the edges, but she looked at the wyvern,  yawning slightly, and spoke.

“Forgive me, Moh Hess.  What did Sindarioux look like?”

The wyvern gazed at her curiously, but honored her request.   _“Hair almost as pale as snow.  Eyes like an autumn sky.”_

Rajiya smiled.  It was then that she knew she’d done well.  She threw an arm over the wyvern’s shoulders in a sort of half-hug and looked up at the sky, now clear and sunny.

“Let’s go,” she said.  “I want to get some more parchment before we come back here.”

The wyvern nodded companionably, and they went.


	4. Sanctuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late-night conversations in the Fortemps manor. Takes place after the end of ARR but before the beginning of Heavensward, or thereabouts.
> 
> Featuring references to Haurchefant/Mattoid.

Rajiya certainly hadn’t intended to stay the night at the Fortemps manor, despite the Count’s effusive offers of hospitality.  She didn’t feel right imposing on the family after all the trauma and upheaval the Scions and the Cobalt Echoes had gone through.  Having them as the patron for her rag-tag band of adventurers was more than enough.

Despite her intentions, however, she found herself all but trapped in the plush manor house when a blizzard swooped through the Holy See with lightning speed, leaving the doors barred and the fires flickering due to the high winds.  With a sigh, she went in search of the manor’s library, and soon found a couple of rather interesting tomes, which she purloined and carried to a small parlor that had several comfortable couches and a well-tended fire.

Here she settled in, tucking her legs underneath her as she paged through the tomes.  One was a rather ancient copy of the Enchiridion, which she found incredibly fascinating.  Had it been in the Fortemps family since the founding?  She turned the preserved pages with care, and her attention was so fixed on the book that the sound of a door opening and closing almost escaped her attention.

Almost.

She looked up just in time to see the Sharlayan woman they called Mattoid padding down the hall, dressed in naught but a somewhat overlarge tunic (Elezen sized, perhaps…) and a pair of leggings.  Mattoid’s gaze was a bit…dreamy, and she didn’t notice Rajiya sitting in the parlor until she was through the doorway.  And then, when she saw the Miqo’te, Mattoid did something Rajiya didn’t expect.

She  _blushed._

Rajiya blinked in surprise, then smiled.  “Oh…who does that room belong to?  Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess…”

The Hyuran woman shifted from foot to foot.  “I can explain, just…”

“You don’t have to,” Rajiya said calmly, patting the couch next to her.  Mattoid hesitated for a second, then walked over and sat down.

“Are you happy?” Rajiya asked.  Mattoid nodded without hesitation.  “And is he?” Another nod.  “Well then,” the Miqo’te said firmly, “That’s really all that matters.”

“You really think so?” Mattoid asked, and the tense note in her voice made Rajiya look at her closely, and then keep talking.

In the end, the two women’s conversation continued until both were drifting off–their exhaustion borne of different sources, but both lulled to sleep by the softness of the sofa and the crackling fire.

It was there that Haurchefant found them, having finally left his room in search of Mattoid, who had left just to get mugs of cocoa–or so she’d said.  He smiled ruefully at the two Warriors of Light on the couch, the precious books Rajiya had been thumbing through on a nearby table, Mattoid’s head on the Miqo’te woman’s shoulder.  He fetched a blanket and spread it over both, and if he tucked in the red-headed Hyur a little more carefully, who could blame him?

He left with the books under his arm and a brighter smile on his face.


	5. Empty Prayers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rajiya reflects. Post-Vault/Heavensward MSQ spoilers.

The tiny Miqo’te woman trudged across the snow, her dark clothing a shadowy blot on an otherwise uninterrupted expanse of white.  North from Dragonhead, on foot, following the line of the cliffs, then west…

At last she stood on the cliff overlooking the city of Ishgard.  The cliff where a certain headstone rested in state.

She was not the only one to have come here.  He had touched many lives, including those of the companions she’d had with her in the Vault.  Of all the memories of that day, some of the most heartrending were not her own.  Mattoid’s heartbroken, bereft wail; Weaver’s vehement curses, Kyulili’s quiet sobs.

Not all the offerings were from adventurers, either.  She could guess who must have left the cloak-badge with the symbol of Ishgard, for it was pristine and crafted from platinum; only a high-ranking Temple Knight could afford such luxury.  Likewise for what resembled a Garlean spy’s visor.  There were bits and baubles from the residents of Dragonhead, too, and other things besides, likely from the Fortemps family.

Rajiya missed him.  She slowly lowered herself to her knees with a sigh, and lifted her burden–a bundle of snow lilies–placing it in the ragged gash that had punctured the proud knight’s shield.

She stared at the sky, afterward, wondering at what had happened so far, at the cost to so many.  The Scions were still fractured, with Y’shtola a pale, fey, and strained version of her former self.  No word had yet come of any of their other companions.  The Cobalt Echoes had borne up scarce better under the weight of the year’s events.

“Matron guide me,” she whispered, closing her eyes as her lips formed the familliar prayer.  “And in my heart sow serenity, purity, and sanctity.”

The words fell hollow.  Nophica’s bitter cousin controlled these lands, and Halone planted only fury.  That fury had taken root in Rajiya’s own heart, but the months since the Vault had seen it bear only fatigue in its wake.

Rajiya slowly stood and stepped to the edge of the cliff, gazing past Ishgard, in the direction of Dravania.  She pulled a last snow lily from the front of her shirt and tossed it into the wind, fingers forming two mudra as she did.  As the wind whipped the lily away, it did so coated in a fine layer of ice, clear as crystal.

“Rest you both well, Lord Haurchefant, Lady Ysayle,” she murmured into the stiff, chilly breeze.  “Were fate not so cruel, we would still have you both, for you are sorely needed.”  She sighed and glanced at the faraway mountains.  “Twelve be good, we’ll find some way to get Estinien back, if naught else.”

She turned to walk away from the memorial, trying to hide the dark feeling in her heart that she could no longer convince herself that the Twelve were anything at all.


	6. The Little Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rajiya adopts a puk. Ambiguous timeframe.

She’d been making her way north from Bloodshore when she heard the cry.  A high-pitched, screeching wail of some kind of small creature in danger.  She urged her chocobo on, and the bird obligingly picked up the pace.

Soon she found the source.  In the thick foliage to one side of the road, a cliff puk had made a nest.  What had prompted the reptile to rear her young on the ground and not on a cliff was a mystery, but it would remain that way–her decision had proven fatal.  The larger puk corpse was nearly flattened, the eyes already glassy.  From the footprints, Rajiya guessed that it had been a buffalo, and that the large animal probably hadn’t even known what it had done.

Nearby was the nest, and unfortunately, all the hatchlings inside had shared their mother’s gruesome fate–save one.  The smallest, obviously the runt, had tumbled from the nest and now laid outside, crying out and flailing a bit.

Rajiya hopped off her chocobo’s back and picked up the puk.  It rewarded her by biting down on her hand.  She sighed–it didn’t hurt, given her thick leather gloves, but it wasn’t appropriate behavior, so she made a stern, sharp noise and smacked it on the nose.  Surprised, the tiny lizard jerked back and wriggled, flapping its tiny, underdeveloped wings.

She sighed and hopped back up onto the chocobo’s back, holding the puk in one hand.  They were like vermin out here–why did she care about this one?  She looked it over again.  It was so tiny it might well die of exposure and starvation, anyway.  Still, she dug around in her packs, giving her bird his head while he trotted toward Costa del Sol.  She found a piece of jerky and shredded it into scraps, nudging one against the lizard’s mouth.  It seemed to get the idea after a moment and stopped thrashing, instead opening its mouth wide.  She obligingly dropped the scraps of meat in, one by one.  To her surprise, the little creature kept its mouth open even after consuming the whole strip of jerky and made an insistent noise.

She dug in her bags again and found a piece of cornbread.  Breaking this up, she fed the puk that as well.  To her bafflement, it demanded more.  In turns she fed it a few scraps of eel pie and, finally, at wit’s end, three whole sun lemons.  This finally seemed to sate the puk’s hunger, and it flopped down onto the saddle, burping slightly.

Rajiya scratched her head.  What was she going to do with it?  Just about then, her chocobo strode into Costa del Sol, and she decided that, for now, she’d keep the scalekin.

After all, how much trouble could it possibly be?


	7. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes your family is hard to deal with. Sometimes they’re your saving grace.
> 
> Rajiya visits her family in Gridania; this is a mostly-plotless setpiece. Influenced slightly by my own personal interpretations of Keeper culture.
> 
> Timeline is ambiguous.

Twilight was breaking over Gridania as Rajiya arrived.  She hadn’t had a chance to visit her family in quite some time, given the mess in Ishgard, but she’d finally managed to secure a couple of days to travel south.  She took a breath of the warm, sweetly-scented forest air and watched as the hyur and elezen inhabitants of the city started to drift homeward. **  
**

Not all of the Keepers kept to their habits of sleeping during the day, so no few of her kin were heading home either–but others were emerging from their homes instead, heading to their relatively peaceful night-time jobs in the Wildflower Stalls, the guilds, or with the Wood Wailers or Gods’ Quiver.  Rajiya was given to understand that the first wave of Keepers accepted into Gridanian culture had been a bit of a relief for the city’s military, for having an entire group of people who preferred to work at night eased the strain of setting patrols and divvying up what the hyur and elezen considered to be the most unfavorable jobs.

For her part, Rajiya kept no schedule.  She was as often awake at night as during the day, depending on what crisis needed to be solved at the moment, so it was easy enough to enjoy the approaching night, and she knew that her mother would be awake to boot.  It wasn’t far to the Fharis home, and she paused, as always, to take it in when she arrived at the gate.

Everything was lovingly carved with plants and forest animals, with a wooden bluebird perched on one of the fence-posts that might as well be real if not for its color.  The only thing that stood out to Rajiya as different was the presence of a few toys in the yard–a rocking ‘bo and jumping rope, some child-sized gardening tools.  She pushed the gate open and walked up and into the house itself.

It was, as always, warm and welcoming.  The owner of the toys was playing with some others–carved wooden beastkin and painted blocks–on a rug before the hearth.  Her sister Zana’s daughter.

“Hi there, Gehva,” she said, crouching down.  The girl, still a bit shy, regarded her cautiously.

“Is your grandmum about?” she asked.  Gehva silently pointed toward the kitchen.

Rajiya smiled at the girl and went that way.  Sure enough, her mother was in the kitchen, preparing what Rajiya would call supper but what, for Keepers, was closer to breakfast.  She was chopping vegetables and mixing soup, but she knew the instant Rajiya stepped through the door all the same.

“There you are,” she said, flicking her ears backward without turning her head.  “Took you long enough to get here!  Put your things down and help me peel these.”  She shoved a bowl of popotoes in Rajiya’s direction along with a paring knife, and the vaunted Warrior of Light could only grin crookedly at her mother’s direction.  She dropped her packs in the corner of the kitchen and got to work.

“Gehva’s growing fast,” Rajiya commented after a moment.  “Does she help you with the gardening?”

“Help is a strong word,” her mother replied wryly.  “Oftentimes she’ll dig up something that shouldn’t have been, but she’s learning.”

“Cute,” Rajiya said, brow furrowing as she worked around the eyes of another popoto, getting the last tiny bits of peel off.

“When are you going to have one of your own?” her mother asked, and the question startled enough that the knife slipped in Rajiya’s hand, very nearly grazing her skin.  Only her instincts managed to avoid a cut.

“Mother,” Rajiya said sternly.

“Don’t you take that tone with me,” her mother replied stubbornly.  “I don’t want to hear it.  You’re several years past due, even!  Did you know Khuma is pregnant?” her mother fixed her with a level stare, and Rajiya tried and failed not to wilt under her gaze.  “You shouldn’t wait much longer.”

“You know I’m in no place to have a child,” Rajiya said stubbornly, to hide the other arguments bubbling up in the back of her head.   _I don’t want to have a child.  Not now, maybe not ever._

“Make your lieutenants or whatever they are take over for you and spend a year in Gridania,” her mother pressed.  “Just have the child and I’ll raise it, if that’s what it takes.”

“ _No_ , mother,” Rajiya said even more forcefully.  “That wouldn’t be fair–”

“Plenty of the girls in the Wood Wailers and Gods’ Quiver do it,” her mother retorted, as if she’d already predicted that argument.

“Well, I don’t think that Weaver–”

“That hyuran boy you’re infatuated with?” her mother replied, a hint of disdain in her tone.  “If he’s not accepting enough to understand that you might lie with a Keeper boy to have a child, he shouldn’t have taken up with you in the first place.”

“Mother!” Rajiya said, anger bubbling in her chest for the first time.  “I’m not  _infatuated_  with him.  We’re  _bonded_!  We had a ceremony in the Sanctum and everything.”

Her mother sniffed in clear disapproval.

“There are things I can do that others can’t,” she continued.  “So no, I’m not going to have a child.  Not until Eorzea is at peace.”

“Eorzea might never be at peace,” her mother said crisply.

“Exactly,” Rajiya said, and stabbed forcefully at another popoto as their conversation dwindled to nothing.

* * *

It was later the same evening that Rajiya went looking for her father, a bag of snacks in tow.  She knew that the best way to get and keep Thya’a’s attention was to bring food, though he was usually happy to spend time with her anyway.

They had what was perhaps a bit of an odd relationship, for Keepers–most Keeper men didn’t have involved relationships with their children after they were born.  However, Rajiya had apparently inherited all of Thya’a’s skill with a bow and had worked alongside him in the Gods’ Quiver before the Calamity, so the two had grown close.

Fortunately, her father wasn’t out on patrol.  One of the bowmen pointed her toward a back room at the guild, and she all but stormed back there.

He seemed to know it was her before she even appeared, and raised an eyebrow, sweeping off his hunting cap with a sigh.  “And what,” he said at last, “brings one of my daughters here, stomping like a buffalo and like to explode with rage?”

She sighed as she got closer and held out the bag of snacks before speaking.  “Mother.”

“Ah,” he said, taking the bag from her.  “Lady troubles.  Wouldn’t have expected it from a daughter, but…”

His tone, laced with just enough humor, made her crack a grin, and she huffed out a bit of a laugh as she sat down on a nearby bench.  He sat next to her, digging through the bag.

“Hmm…I see walnuts, and cookies, and…what’s this?” he said, holding up something and squinting at it.

“Doman rice cracker,” she said in reply.  “They’re spicy.  I think you might like it.”

He popped it in his mouth and his ears twitched in delight at the flavor.  He hunted for another as he spoke.  “So, what has your mother done now?”

“She wants me to have a child…” Rajiya gave her father a brief explanation before sighing.  Her tail beat restlessly against the bench and she hunched her shoulders, acting like a scolded child rather than a famous warrior.  “I just don’t understand.  I don’t know that I ever want children, and I certainly can’t have one now, not when I’m running around fighting primals and gods only know what else.”

Thya’a sat back, rummaging around in the bag and coming up with a walnut.  He examined it for a couple of seconds before speaking.  “Your mother is worried.”  With that statement, he bit down hard on the walnut with his back teeth, cracking the shell.

“Worried?” Rajiya said, confused.  “Worried about what?”

“Rajiya…” he said, pausing to spit out a few fragments of the walnut’s shell.  “When you went to Carteneau, and afterward, when we got word of what had happened and when the Adders trailed back without you, we thought the worst.  We grieved for you.  We were certain you’d died, blown to ash by the dreadwyrm.  And then, five years later, you show up on your mother’s doorstep looking like a ghost.  Suddenly, the mourning we’d done five years ago was fresh in our minds again, like someone had ripped open an old wound.  You fled, and your mother panicked, and it wasn’t until you trailed back months later that she finally started to heal from that second wound.”

Rajiya winced.  It painted her in a fairly unflattering light.

“Now, you’re not to blame for the Calamity, the dreadwyrm, or any of the rest, save maybe for haring off to Limsa when your mother thought she’d seen a ghost,” he said.  “But at the same time, your mother thought you were gone.  Her bravest daughter, gone in a flash, with nothing to remember you by except the trinkets you’d left at her house.  And now, with everything we hear about you–from the Adders, from the bards, from your own mouth?  She’s worried it’ll happen again.”

“That still doesn’t mean I should have a child,” Rajiya managed to say weakly.  She was clinging to that, even though her father’s words made a lot of sense.

“You’re right,” he said without reservation, which surprised her just a bit.  “But I thought some explanation of your mother’s thought process might clear some things up.  But I think something else might, too.”  He looked around the room, which was nothing so much as a sort of overlarge dining and common area, and finally jerked his chin toward a Keeper man sitting by the large fireplace on one side of the room.  “See him?”

Rajiya followed the motion of her father’s head and saw a stately fellow, probably ten years her father’s senior if not more.  His appearance was nice enough, if not particularly memorable; he had the ashy-grey skin and pale hair common to many Keepers, a trim beard, a leanly muscled physique.

“Yes,” Rajiya replied.  “What about him?”

“He’s twelve years older than me,” Thya’a confirmed, after pausing to crack open another walnut with his teeth.  “No children.”

“None?” Rajiya asked.  “Well, I mean, does he just prefer men or–”

“No, that’s not it,” Thya’a said.  “Natural singleton.  He’s not particularly interested in carnal pleasures at all, nor really in relationships– _romantic_  ones, mind you, he’s got plenty of friends.  Hell, he even gets along with the elezen better than most of us.  And it’s not for lack of attention–he’s let plenty of women down gently, and he’s a decent sort.”

Rajiya looked toward the other man again, in quiet, somewhat awed reflection.

“He just prefers being alone,” her father said.  “And me?  Eleven children with seven different women, two of them sons, and another child on the way.”  He crunched loudly, almost obnoxiously loudly on a rice cracker.  “Sometimes I tell Rheki’to that I’m making up for him, and we laugh about it.”

She grinned, crookedly.  “That sounds about right.  Why tell me this?”

“Because,” he said pointedly, “no matter what your mother tells you, there are plenty of Keepers out there–in Gridania, outside Gridania, hell, probably across the ocean even–that don’t want children, or don’t have them ‘til they’re old enough it’s a gamble.  There’s plenty out there that have too  _many_  children.  There’s all kinds of people out there, and don’t let her make you believe that you’re out of line because you don’t match up with what most do.”  He put the bag of snacks down and reached out to put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, a look of noted care and concern in his gaze.  “Your mother is worried, but that doesn’t excuse her for trying to push you into something you don’t want.  Just try to understand why she is, but keep doing what you want.  In the end, you’re a credit to us, to Gridania, to Eorzea–and I’m not just saying that because I’m your father.  Your deeds will mark you, not whatever children you do or don’t leave behind.”

Her eyes stung with tears, but she managed a smile.  “Gods.  Did you become a bard while I was gone?”

Thya’a grinned and picked up the bag of snacks again.  “No,” he said, “but I like to hear all those lovely songs about one of my own daughters.  Maybe some of it’s rubbed off on me.”


End file.
